Help My Powermac Is Dying!!!!!!!!

[TyleRomeo]

I have a powermac dual 1.25GHZ g4 with OSX 10.4.7. Lately its been acting up. About a month ago I've started getting this circle with a slash thru it on start up. At first you see the apple logo and then circle with the line thru it shows up and it just sits there and won't start. So I would restart and that would usually do the trick. Lately its been happening more often, maybe every 20% that i start up.

Last night my airport card (which I have show up in the menu bar wasn't there and I couldn't log into the internet) So I took apart the tower and took out the airport card and put it back in. Thinking maybe it was loose or something. When I restarted the same issue happened. When I went to any network setting to see what was up it would freeze up on me. I tried tons of backdoor options with very few that were successful.

I must have restarted the machine about 40 times last night. I will not shutdown becuase of something going on with the machine. Then I ran the hardware test on it. Everything was fine with the quick test. But the extended test said i had a fire/5/10 error with the logic board. I have been looking thru apple's help sites and have no idea what that means. I held down the logic board button for 3 seconds to reset it. So far it bought me enough time to write this plead to you guys. Anyone know what that error message means? Is my logic board drying? Did reseting just do the trick? Could I have a bad airport card? I'm stumped. Please help.

Tyler

 

[Poogis]

Have you tried taking out the Airport card and using your mac without it?

 

[nxent]

I have a powermac dual 1.25GHZ g4 with OSX 10.4.7. Lately its been acting up. About a month ago I've started getting this circle with a slash thru it on start up. At first you see the apple logo and then circle with the line thru it shows up and it just sits there and won't start. So I would restart and that would usually do the trick. Lately its been happening more often, maybe every 20% that i start up.

Last night my airport card (which I have show up in the menu bar wasn't there and I couldn't log into the internet) So I took apart the tower and took out the airport card and put it back in. Thinking maybe it was loose or something. When I restarted the same issue happened. When I went to any network setting to see what was up it would freeze up on me. I tried tons of backdoor options with very few that were successful.

I must have restarted the machine about 40 times last night. I will not shutdown becuase of something going on with the machine. Then I ran the hardware test on it. Everything was fine with the quick test. But the extended test said i had a fire/5/10 error with the logic board. I have been looking thru apple's help sites and have no idea what that means. I held down the logic board button for 3 seconds to reset it. So far it bought me enough time to write this plead to you guys. Anyone know what that error message means? Is my logic board drying? Did reseting just do the trick? Could I have a bad airport card? I'm stumped. Please help.

Tyler

if it's a logic board error it does sound like it's dying... did you try disconnecting the airport card entirely? how did you run the hardware test? i want to run it on my powermac g5 since it's been acting up. the other night my graphics card seemingly 'stopped working'- overall slow performance for any task requiring quartz- until it eventually gave me 'grey screen of death'. repeatedly restarted only to get grey screen of death, not even making it to the login screen. i shut it down, opened it up, stared at it for it for a few hours before restarting it- started up like nothing was wrong, even though i did nothing to fix it. still don't want to trust it right now...

 

[TyleRomeo]

Have you tried taking out the Airport card and using your mac without it?

No i haven't since thats my only access to internet and I need it pretty much 24/7 for my work. But thats a good idea. That I might try.

 

[Maxiseller]

If it continues to keep acting up, you could always telephone Apple; sure they charge you but they might be able to tell you what the error number is?

Other than this, if the Logic Board is indeed dying, it might be worth keeping an eye on eBay for your replacement machine! They do go at nice rates nowadays - you might be able to get an upgrade.

 

[TyleRomeo]

well I do have a PCI USB 2/FIREWIRE combo card installed, maybe thats why im getting the error. Since Powermacs g4s didn't know what USB 2 was. I also switched my firewire drive from the stock firewire ports to the pci ports and its been behaving better.

Tyler

 

[arogge]

Is it strange that I had the same problem only a few hours ago? The first thing that happened was that I lost FTP access to the Seagate IDE hard drive from Apple. I shut down and powered on about 30 minutes later. The Mac got stuck at the grey screen and was taking longer than usual to boot OS X, like it does sometimes when I install an OS update and it reboots from the grey screen to finish the update. Then the screen displayed the circle with the line through it, or the no-entry sign. I turned off the Mac by holding the power button and then turned it back on. The system booted normally. I want to run the Apple hardware test, but I've lost my Apple media pack. The PowerMac appears to be operating normally now. I've powered off and on several times, but the no-entry sign didn't reappear. Is it time for a new Mac, or am I worrying about nothing?

 

[TyleRomeo]

Is it strange that I had the same problem only a few hours ago? The first thing that happened was that I lost FTP access to the Seagate IDE hard drive from Apple. I shut down and powered on about 30 minutes later. The Mac got stuck the grey screen and was taking longer than usual to boot OS X, like it does sometimes when I install an OS update and it reboots from the grey screen to finish the update. Then the screen displayed the circle with the line through it, or the no-entry sign. I turned off the Mac by holding the power button and then turned it back on. The system booted normally. I want to run the Apple hardware test, but I've lost my Apple media pack. The PowerMac appears to be operating normally now. I've powered off and on several times, but the no-entry sign didn't reappear. Is it time for a new Mac, or am I worrying about nothing?

what kind of mac do you have?

 

[arogge]

That's the strange thing... it's that dual-G4 system. It's still working, so maybe it was only a temporary problem. Another problem happened the previous day. I double-clicked on the OS X hard drive icon and Finder froze. The applications didn't crash, but I couldn't access the process manager to restart Finder. I also couldn't open a Terminal window because the Dock was frozen, so I had to force a cold boot. Maybe that caused the no-entry error. I also had the box open after that, so maybe I unseated a board or a cable.

 

[TyleRomeo]

That's the strange thing... it's that dual-G4 system. It's still working, so maybe it was only a temporary problem. Another problem happened the previous day. I double-clicked on the OS X hard drive icon and Finder froze. The applications didn't crash, but I couldn't access the process manager to restart Finder. I also couldn't open a Terminal window because the Dock was frozen, so I had to force a cold boot. Maybe that caused the no-entry error. I also had the box open after that, so maybe I unseated a board or a cable.

hmm sound familiar. I get ocasional finder freezes and have to cold reboot. Not sure if it has anything to do with my hard drives being at 95% capacity. Where are you Seagate 750GB?

 

[arogge]

It's the 120 GB drive with 2 MB cache.

 

[TyleRomeo]

It's the 120 GB drive with 2 MB cache.

hmm sounds like my stock one. so its a dual 1.25 with 120GB and the ati 9000 64MB video card. it came with 512MB ram also. right?

 

[arogge]

It was 512 MB RAM with that cheap ATI card.

 

[spinne1]

well I do have a PCI USB 2/FIREWIRE combo card installed, maybe thats why im getting the error. Since Powermacs g4s didn't know what USB 2 was. I also switched my firewire drive from the stock firewire ports to the pci ports and its been behaving better.

Tyler

They wouldn't sell the cards if they caused all G4 Powermacs to bug out. I have a USB 2 card and it works fine, and my computer is older than yours. That is not likely part of the problem (but it would be a good idea to remove the card during testing to eliminate it as a suspect).

You need to remove the airport card and run the computer without it and restart it several times, and run different apps, etc. Basically try to get it to repeat the problem. If it runs perfect, either the airport card, or the part of the logic board where the card connected (or the circuitry connected to that) are at fault. At that point, you could find someone with a Mac to hook up the airport card to see what happens (restart several times). If not, perhaps take it to an Apple Store and explain what is happening and ask if they can test it (or replace it--if it is under warranty).

If it IS your card, ebay could be your best bet for another card price wise. Or, you may think about selling your wireless router or whatever you use and getting a wired router. Because it is a desktop, wireless does not really have any advantage (except for the lack of a wire!).